


sure of you

by Adia (Eva)



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2018-08-24 14:47:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/pseuds/Adia
Summary: Legolas is the jealous one.





	1. clear sky

**Author's Note:**

> will be a series of shorts exploring how an Elf could convince a Dwarf to leave Middle Earth behind

The hour is late and the moon is setting when Legolas returns to the chambers he keeps now with Gimli, Gloin's son, in these hushed days of peace following the War of the Ring. Gondor is sleeping around them, but he knows he will not find Gimli so; the Dwarf works the hours of his kin, following the call of craft rather than the rhythms of the sun. Two days and this, the second night he has studied the stone of the White City. "What once was broken may be broken again, aye," he has conceded, "but we may greatly lessen the chances of that with the aid of Dwarven steel!"

And awake he does find him, awake and freshly bathed, no lingering dust or scent of iron in the cool air of their little room. Gimli patiently untangles the knots in his hair, seated on a small stool before the fire, greeting Legolas with a quick glance and quicker smile. "How fare the stars?"

"They sing more clearly tonight," Legolas answers, standing on the threshold of their shared balcony, sparing another look to the night sky. "The last plumes of the mountain have been borne away. Summer may yet find us."

"I do not doubt it." His voice is soft, tired but with a lilt of pleasure: Gimli is finding great joy in smithing, though he has declared, again and again, that metal is not his preferred medium. No, his love is reserved for gems, for crystal, and Legolas thinks of his promise, to go with him to the caves of Helm's Deep and look upon them in wonder. 

"What hardens your eyes so?" Gimli asks, breaking into Legolas' reverie, though he sounds amused. "Your jaw has firmed, my friend, and you reach as if for your knives."

"You exaggerate," Legolas scoffs, and leaves the gentle chorus of the stars behind. Gimli snorts but surrenders his comb when Legolas holds out his hand with imperious command. "You have worked yourself too long, Gloin's son."

"Not long at all," Gimli yawns, and bows his head. Legolas sits behind him, on the stone hearth, and is of level enough height to easily work the knots from Gimli's hair. "But my project must rest, and so I shall take advantage. Do you chafe at the bit, then?"

"Your pardon?" 

"You seem displeased at the prospect of a ripening summer."

Legolas tugs on one damp and curling lock. "This is not a rest, love! If you go from studying stone to deciphering an Elf's moods!"

He is rewarded with a deep, rumbling chuckle, and another yawn as he quickly plaits Gimli's hair, readying it for sleep. Two days and nights, and finally his Dwarf will rest; a strange people, Legolas thinks, and jumps lightly to his feet. Gimli had explained, as soon as Aragorn had asked them to stay on in Minas Tirith for some time, that Dwarves most often sleep in communal rooms, with easy access to their mines or their smithies, staggering into the shared chambers to sleep when the need for it won out over the desire to keep working. He did not wish to subject any of his companions to such a strange schedule, but Legolas, likewise, kept strange hours for respite. Strange, but complimentary. He follows Gimli to his bed--his, again, because Elves need not sleep as mortals do--but also theirs.

"You are jealous of stone, then," Gimli says, and laughs at Legolas' sigh. "Dwarves are said to be the possessive race, dear one. Don't give lie to your own prejudices!"

"I could wish you were more given to jealousy," Legolas answers tartly and pushes Gimli down onto the mattress. Gimli complies, wriggling under the pile of blankets Legolas cannot convince him to give up. Even when he wraps himself around the Dwarf, Gimli complains of a chill until at least one blanket lays over him. "But you are too sure of me."

"Who is this Elf who stands over me, dour and unhappy?" Gimli makes as if to kick him, so Legolas must take umbrage and fall onto the bed, wrestling his love down with the advantage of blankets to trap his great limbs, even as he cries out, "What is this treachery? Sure of you? You hounded me from Lorien to Meduseld, demanding my heart! How can I doubt you now? Think me faithless, do you?"

He is laughing, though Legolas growls and looms over him, and so certainty steals back into his heart. Gimli's eyes are clear as the sky: there is no lie in them. "You thought me so."

"No," Gimli denies immediately, and huffs at Legolas' raised brows. "I am but a simple Dwarf, from a simple mountain--"

"A Lord of your people and from the greatest Kingdom the Dwarves yet have in Middle Earth!"

"In Middle Earth, aye." It is a Dwarf custom, to butt heads together in affection, and Legolas remains grateful that Gimli has modified this gesture to simply brushing the tip of his nose against Legolas' own. And it is easy, very easy, to turn this soft caress into a kiss, but at the moment he does not do so.

"You thought I would sail and leave you," he accuses, and brings more of his weight to bear on his Dwarf though Gimli has not even tried to escape him. "After all I have done to bind myself to you."

"And having allowed this binding, you think I will leave you for a cave," Gimli replies, deadpan, and the Dwarf is still laughing at him. Still! 

"Ah, but how did you describe them?" Legolas asks sweetly, and recalls the exact words: "Immeasurable halls, filled with an everlasting music." He has heard poetry from Gimli since, but that moment more than any has impressed itself upon him. Gimli will not stay in Erebor when they return to the north, having heard a call that, for him, must be alike to the call of the Sea to Legolas.

"Mmm." His eyes have slipped closed, and Legolas kisses him at last, the damnable Dwarf's lips still upturned in a smile. "You'll see, love. You'll understand."

"So I say to you," Legolas growls into Gimli's ear. "Don't you dare dream of your caves in my arms, Dwarf."

"Jealous," Gimli says again, with no little pleasure, and yawns. "Get under these blankets and hold me in your arms, then."


	2. Chapter 2

It is nothing so open, so easily understood, as an argument or even silence--these, Legolas could interpret, could challenge at the very least. But Gimli’s words are all of the easy peace they have cherished between them since Lorien, his actions of the trust they had only recently grown in that golden place. 

All but his refusal, sudden and brutal, to meet Legolas’ gaze with his own.

It cannot be Arod. Though Gimli remains wary of their mount, he meets even Arod’s eyes, murmuring dire warnings and delicate pleas meant only for the horse’s ears, though Legolas hears them plainly. And Aragorn is certainly not subjected to such treatment. Nay! It is Legolas alone who finds Gimli’s gaze averted, ever since the cruel pronouncements of that Man of Rohan, that their friends would not be found alive, that they must have been burned with the orcs who had captured them.

It is a strange thing, to ache so acutely when his fear is all for the Hobbits. But he has drawn much comfort from Gimli, and though his hand is not thrown from the Dwarf’s strong shoulder, he is denied the simplest of connections, of trusts.

Even when Gimli commands his bow, even when Gandalf returns to them--aye, Legolas thinks bitterly, when Gandalf returns to them and sunders Gimli from his side!

So it is in Meduseld, in Rohan, in the windswept night, that Legolas confronts Gimli, for all the good it might do them, even as his friend’s eyes remain trained on his axe and his whetstone when Legolas approaches him on the battlements.

“Gimli,” he says only, hearing both the accusation and plea in his own tone. But he cannot cringe, for he cannot hide his pain.

“You had no right,” Gimli says, the words softer than the cruel wind. But he must know that Legolas will hear them, and that they will bite.

“No right to what?” he asks, genuine in his confusion, and the pain rises near to anger in his gut. Gimli’s eyes remain locked on his axe, and Legolas could take it, could hurl it into the night, for just a moment’s satisfaction.

He does not, for they ride to war in the morning, and his Dwarf must have his axe. But he takes a moment to envision it, even so.

“My arguments are not yours, Legolas.”

The sweet and the bitter, for he is kind enough yet to name Legolas, even if he remains obscure. Legolas draws a breath, cold and bracing, between his teeth. “Your arguments will always be backed my bow, my friend.”

And this is the moment he does not expect: that Gimli will stand, his axe falling to the stone floor, and his eyes will flash with the fire of forges as he at last looks, nay, glares! 

“Perhaps that is the way of Elves,” Gimli says, colder than the wind that comes from the peaks of mountains, and Legolas, who fears neither cold nor heat, yet shivers. “But it is not the way of Dwarves, and my arguments are not yours, nor is my life to be bought with yours. It is not, if you must hear me more plainly, yours to buy!”

Of both heat and ice, and his words are similarly a confusion to Legolas, for is it not the right of a Fellowship to defend their comrades? “If I mayn’t defend you, then what is the purpose of an army, Gimli of the Dwarves?” he demands, a sourness threatening the strength of his limbs. “Why do we join these Men, why do we--”

“Why do you raise your bow when I have raised merely my voice?” Gimli cries out, and now the fire of forges is in Legolas’ veins. “You had no right!”

“No right to defend you to Eomer, you tell me?” And he wants to laugh, and he wants to curse. “That you should be threatened and I should stand idly by? That, my friend, will never happen!”

It will never happen. Should Legolas hear the merest rumor of harm coming to Gimli, he will be there, bow in hand, heart in throat. He will suffer no such threat to his Dwarf. 

“And for what other Mortal would you make such a promise?” Gimli asks, almost spitting out the words, a sneer drawing his lips back from his teeth. It cannot hide the pain in his face, and Legolas’ hands itch for his knives--such pain cannot be left unavenged.

“There is no other!” he answers impatiently, and the words, unthought but honest, fall like stones into a well.

And there is silence.

And, between them, something like an echo.

It is, at last, Gimli who moves. He bends with unconscious grace to retrieve his axe, his eyes averted yet again. “Legolas. You have not the right.”

The echo is yet in his ears. “Then how do I earn it?”

Gimli’s eyes meet his, and they are open, wide, genuine in their confusion and their hesitation.


End file.
